Do you know this man?

At a time when the therapeutic use of marijuana had been abandoned in the United States, Dr. Tod Mikuriya fought to restore cannabis to its proper place in the Western pharmacopeia. While serving as director of marijuana research for the National Institute of Mental Health in 1967, Mikuriya rediscovered the forgotten medical literature on cannabis and brought it to the attention of physicians and scientists. Almost singlehandedly, he kept the issue alive while very few Americans–even pot smokers–were aware of marijuana’s medicinal history. Mikuriya would play a crucial role in drafting the language of California Proposition 215, the 1996 ballot measure that legalized medical marijuana in California not just for

a shortlist of specified diseases but also for “any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.”